Building a fence - Nailer?

[Limp Arbor]

SWMBO wants a fence.

Phase one is done - cutting down all of the pine trees that died over the winter.

Phase two is done - SWMBO telling me I'm an idiot for not making the neighbor pay me for his trees I cut down and paid to have chipped.

Phase three is done - found the property markers and roughed out where the fence will be.

Phase four is done - Priced out the pressure treated lumber.

I am going with a board-on-board or shadowbox fence with the 5/8x6" dog eared pickets. So my plan is to run three 8' 2x4s between each post laying flat so the rails are flush with the posts. Then use six nails per picket to put up the pickets. With 160' of fence I'll need about 400 pickets and 2,400 nails.

I have a compressor with plenty of hose to get to the fence so...

What kind/brand of gun do I need and what kind of nails/staples?

[jamesgangnc]

Round head nailer will do the job. I'd consider going 6' instead of

8' because it will eventually sag in the middle and it will do that less with the 6' span.

Another trick is to make each section with a curved top that is hghest at the center between each post. Then when it sags you won't notice that the curve got slightly less curved.

[hrhofmann]

Just buy your lumber at HD or Lowes and you can get plenty of curved

2x4s.

[dpb]

On 5/11/2011 9:39 AM, Limp Arbor wrote: ...

Unless you have a bunch more work than this, all you need is Harbor Freight el cheapo framing nailer.

But, much more permanent would be you use yellow screws; even the galvanized will rust a stain mark eventually as well as work out over time, particularly if in area prone to much wind and temperature extremes.

[Higgs Boson]

he gate shortly. What are "yellow screws".

TIA

HB

[DerbyDad03]

What about Phase five?

Submitted the plans to the appropriate municipality and secured a permit.

(I would have gotten a permit, but they would have turned my plan down, so I just went ahead and put the fence up anyway. It improved three properties and no one has complained in the 20 years hence.)

[Limp Arbor]

No permit need in my town unless...

A the fence is over 6' high B the fence surrounds a pool that holds more than 24" of water

[DerbyDad03]

e quoted text -

In my town the fence can be 6' high up to the back of the dwelling and then has to drop to 4' along the sides with no fence allowed past the front of the dwelling.

My problem was that I have a family room extension off the back of the east half of the house that extends about 20' into the backyard. The fence was going along the west side of the lot but the town considered the back of the extension to be the back of my house.

They wanted me to drop the height to 4' once it lined up with the back of the extension, even though I still had 20' of backyard before I reached the back of the west side of the house.

They told me they wouldn't allow a 6' fence in that area, so I dropped the permit request and put it up anyway.

[Joe]

Rent a framing nailer. Buy the biggest ring shank nails you can find, like Senco HL series, stainless if possible. Better yet, rent a Makita impact driver with a Torx (star) driver and buy outdoor type construction screws. Dorking around with philips or square drive screws will only give you a lot of aggravation. The Torx drives don't strip out, cam out, or misbehave and a good driver will do several hundred screws before it wears enough to need replacing. This is what you do if you want to profit on a job, and for the DIYer best way to save a ton of time. Odds are, after you have used the impact driver for a hour or two it will be your next tool purchase. Tell SWMBO 'think Fathers Day".

Joe

[krw]

Yellow screws (as in yellow zinc)? Wouldn't decking screws be better? I have to replace a fence this year, also, and was considering screws for the boards. Is there a downside? It seems deck screws are cheaper than stainless nails and a whole lot easier to find.

[krw]

+1 on the impact driver but don't be afraid of Philips screws with a decent impact driver and bit. They really don't cam out (when driven with an impact driver) like they do with a drill.

[HeyBub]

Couple of hints:

• Align the runners - the 2x4s - so the long axis is up and down. Less chance of bowing.

• Place a picket (or other) lengthwise at the bottom, set the pickets on top of it. This "baseboard" will (eventually) rot and you need only replace it instead of a run of pickets.

• For this one job in a decade, get the HF nailer. The only thing that would keep me from using that tool is the availability of galvanized nails. For me, a better solution is 2" deck screws and a wired drill with a long extension cord. Further, one screw per picket per runner.

• Don't use 4x4 wooden uprights; use 2" galvanized steel posts. My house backs up to a 200' wide power company easement. All the folks on the other side of the easement used wooden posts while homeowners on my side uniformly used steel posts. After hurricane Yikes, EVERY SINGLE FENCE on the other side that used wooden posts had their fences lying in the easement! Not one single fence on my side came down.

Best of luck on your project.

[FatterDumber& Happier Moe]

I put the posts for my fence about 5 feet apart and used the picket boards for the runners, I used screws, sheet rock screws since the fence was more for function than to win a beauty contest. The cool thing about using screws is you can replace one board, a section or a post etc. without tearing the whole fence apart. Wind, kids, riding lawnmowers, and yes termites, they will eventually eat the bottom of the posts... someday the fence will need repairing for some reason and the screws make it much easier when it comes to repairs. An air powered drill works well for this type of project.

[Ed Pawlowski]

wrote

Best place for nails or screws is McFeelys

They have lots of stainless nails if that is your final choice.

[despen]

Nails? No way.

Deck screws:

[JIMMIE]

You can get pre made panels built as you described.. My neighbors put them up and so far they have lasted 24 years with zero maintenance. No staining, painting, cleaning or anything. Admittedly they could be in a lot better shape but I figure for the lack of care the fence has had it has held up well. Some of the boards had bad knots and have broken some of the boards have curled but even after 24 years I dont think it would take more than a day or two to clean stain and repair the 200 ft fence. I dont know what the current price is but when they were first built I noticed that you couldnt buy the wood for the cost of the panels. Just something to consider.

Jimmie

[krw]

As I said, they're *expensive*. They want $225 for a box of stainless siding nails, or about $.06 each! Decking screws (~$50/1000 for NoCoRode) are cheaper and I wouldn't have to buy as many.

[mm]

Is your neighbor all right with your fence? Even if you have a legal right, I'd try to keep him happy. You know him better than I do**, but now might end up being the time to take credit for cutting odwn those trees of his. (Assuming he was all right with thataaa. Otherwise you can tell him that beavers did it.)

You should probably show him the property markers, in case years from now they've gotten buried somehow. Maybe get some acknowledgement from him that the fence is in the right place, in case he sells the place, but I don't know how to do complicated thigns like that.

I heard from a surveyor that the property markers are ends of bar, something like rebar, hammered was it 2 or 4 feet into the ground, and they do or used to have a plastic cap with surveyor's id on it or in it. Is that right?

I live in a townhouse and maybe there are none between me and my neighbors, but I also live on the corner of it, so maybe there should be one delimiting the entire parcel, but with a cheap metal detector, that found other things, I coudlnt' find it. Although maybe the parcel extends beyond the land we use for yards and common area into a wild area we don't use.

[jamesgangnc]

Deck screws don't prevent rust any longer than galvanized nails. And it's a whole lot more labor to do screws with any tool. A round head framing nailer with 2" galvanized nails will put pickets on pretty fast. And you need to do 2 per 2x4 to keep the pickets form warping. Not one in the center of the picket.

[krw]

2" nails are a bit long (1-1/2" rail + 1/2" picket) and that's the bottom end for my nailer and I can't find them around here anyway (nothing less than 2-3/8"). I have an old Bostitch coiled siding nailer that I could use but I'm not sure which nails I need. I have some stainless nails left over from a siding job but they're 2-3/8".

Sure. Center of the tree away from the rails is probably a good idea, too. I suppose ring-shank would work better, though galvanized nails are pretty rough. Ring shanks may be an issue 10 years down the road. ;-)